PUERTO PEÑASCO, SONORA — In days past, RVs and tents were about the only forms of lodging dotting the long stretch of Sandy Beach, west of downtown Rocky Point.

They're now joined by a new, permanent and much taller presence: luxury condo towers.

Condo developments are turning Rocky Point — a town that started as home to shrimpers and fishermen and grew into a hideaway for U.S. expatriates and a college-student party spot — into a booming tourist center. No place symbolizes this growth more than Sandy Beach, the approximately 5-mile stretch of sand west of town that just a few years ago had no permanent homes.